Overview

The Development Studies minor teaches you how to understand processes of social, cultural, ecological, economic, and political change in a rapidly shifting world.

In your studies, you'll tackle some of the most urgent and relevant issues in contemporary development – including debt and poverty, human rights, migration, coloniality, intersecting inequalities, localisation, sustainability, and gender relations.

What is Development Studies?

Development Studies is an interdisciplinary field of research, teaching, and practice that takes ‘development challenges’ as its central concern. It addresses the processes of social, cultural, ecological, economic and political change, and also the people, organisations, practices, and knowledges that engage in these development-related processes (DSAA website).

Why do a Development Studies minor?

Development Studies is interdisciplinary, so a minor will complement study in other disciplines such as Law, Anthropology, Sociology, Gender, Economics, Political Science and International Relations, Human Geography, Critical Historical Studies, Environmental Humanities, Indigenous Studies, and Decolonial and Postcolonial studies as well as some of the technical and natural sciences. Development Studies adds to the methodological and theoretical rigour of engagement across these disciplines.

A minor in Development Studies will equip you with the knowledge, analytical skills and intercultural capabilities to understand the complex contemporary challenges of our globalised interconnected world.